The Incredible Hulk: A Secret From The Past
by zooman
Summary: My story is sequel to the Hulk episode The Beast Within. Dr. Claudia Baxter finally realizes that her assistant, David, and Dr. David Banner were the same person. She also figures out David's secret of becoming the Hulk.


The Incredible Hulk: A Secret From The Past

(this story is set sometime at the end of the fourth season of the tv show)

Dr. Claudia Baxter sat alone in her laboratory in the zoo building. She sat at a table in the centre of the room, surrounded by stacks of papers and folders covering virtually every square inch of the table. She wore a a gray zoo uniform. She just sat there perfectly still staring at a particular sheet of paper lying on table right under her eyes. The paper was covered with oddly written chemistry formulas and off mathematical equations. She just kept shaking her head, with an expression on her face as if she were completely stumped by some new problem. The morning sun appeared through the back window.

The back of the laboratory was chock full of piles of cardboard boxes, packed to the brim with all kinds of various scientific equipment. "Man, this equation has really got me on the back burner," she just kept thinking over and over again, "what is the common denominator to all this?! Somewhere's in this paper is the answer to the problem, but I just can't get it. The answer just keeps eluding me."

Claudia finally just got up and started pacing all about the lab. A brief memory came to her mind...

_Elliot the gorilla was strapped into the gamma machine. Claudia, dressed in a white lab coat and wearing blue jeans, boots and a yellow tee shirt underneath, was busily turning the black square shaped knobs on the device. The small, radiation device was in the middle of the lab (she had made space by moving all the other lab equipment and table and chairs out of the way. The machine was designed in a yellow sphere type shape, with the black seat in the middle and the black gamma injection device (a weird hose type machine) extending upwards from the bottom of the machine, and then turning to face the patient. The black square shaped knobs on the machine were located along the right side of the gamma device. The words CULVER LABS was printed in white letters along the top of the machine. Elliot was only about a year or so old. The bright afternoon sun was shining through one of the windows. The young ape squirmed in his seat. "Hold on Elliot," Claudia said to the reluctant simian as she adjusted the knobs, "if this experiment works, and according to all of Dr. Banner's notes I see no reason why not, the gamma injection will do everything from increasing strength, increasing stature/mobility in apes and possibly causing a brief next step in ape evolution." She chuckled a little. "Though I admit I maybe getting a bit ahead of myself." Located on small brown table far behind the gamma device was stack of notebooks, with the title: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF DR. DAVID BANNER-1967. At the far end of the table was another stack of notebooks-THE THEORIES OF DR. RONALD PRATT (forwarded by Arthur. C. Clarke)-1962. "Well Elliot, we got you and your mom all the way from the jungle for this, so good luck," Claudia wished upon the little ape, as she finished setting the knobs, "ok that's about one unit of gamma. " "We don't want any accidental overdoes," Claudia thought to herself, "like what I read happened to Dr. Banner in that one journal written by Dr. Kaufman in the Smithsonian, though most agree that story is probably just a tall tale." Claudia laughed a little._

_A narrow light blue beam came out of the hose on the gamma device and focused directly into Elliot's forehead. The young ape wiggled and squirmed for a minute or so. The beam let out a high pitched electronic sound._

_Then the beam suddenly switched off. Dr. Claudia Baxter stood observing Elliot for a brief second or so._

_"As the weeks and monthes pass I have indeed marveled-no pun intended-at some fascinating biological changes taking place in the gorilla," Claudia thought to herself, as she watched Elliot in the special laboratory zoo enclosure, playing on a tire swing with a fake grass lawn and a minature pool of water right below him. The enclosure was encased by glass. Claudia just stood there wearing her dark green zoo uniform. The young gorilla was swinging back and forth on the tire swing, while grunting loudly. "Elliot has developed more of the bipedal stature of a human, and has shown hand movements and body structure closer to that of a human." The gorilla turned his head and grunted at Claudia through the glass, who grinned at him._

_Claudia stood scanning the DNA readouts on the image on the computer screen in her laboratory. A large, full colour digital image of a strand of DNA, with the caption-ELLIOT on the top of it, was showing on her computer. Claudia sat calmly at the computer terminal. Her green zookeeper uniform covered in sweat stains from the intense heat. The zoologist just sat there studying the image on her screen. "The answer as to why Elliot has developed more super normally than other apes I used the gamma device on," Claudia said to herself quietly as her dark eyes never moved from the DNA image on the screen, "it seems that this particular gorilla has a more unique DNA than other apes." The dark haired zoologist rested her chin on her fist. "So in conclusion it would seem that the gamma injection I used on Elliot set off a mutation of some kind. He's going to develop a different biology than other gorillas. The gamma beam must have altered his body chemistry in some way." The zoologist just slowly shook her head. "I don't know how exactly."_

_Elliot the gorilla was walking down the hallway of the main zoo building carrying a tray of donuts and coffee, in a large DUNKIN DONUTS box. His walk and gait was much closer to that of a human than an ape. Elliot knocked on the door to the office. DR. MARY PATRICK-read the sign on the door. "Come in!" a lady's voice called from within. Elliot turned the door knob with his right hand, and carried the tray of donuts and coffee in his left hand. He sauntered into the yellow wallpapered office. An attractive short dark haired woman, sat behind a desk wearing a the traditional, long sleeved green zoo uniform and cap. Her desk was a mess of papers and folders. There was just a plain red sofa in the office under the window. It was morning outside. Dr. Patrick was chatting happily on the phone in her right hand, when she looked up and saw the gorilla stroll casually in. "Just set the tray down on the desk Elliot," she ordered as the gorilla did as he was told._

Dr. Claudia Baxter just kept pacing all around her laboratory. "Ever since I got the title of director, I have too little time for research anymore," Claudia pouted to herself, "but what time I do have I end up stuck on this one problem."

Claudia wandered all about the zoo, lost in thought, walking past all the various zoo enclosures and looking at all the animals.

She stopped outside the leopard enclosure and watched a female leopard pacing all about her large space. The space was set up to resemble a jungle area complete with a mini waterfall and several palm trees. Claudia folded her arms over her breasts and watched the bored big cat for a minute or so. Then she sighed and walked on.

She found herself along with many other zoo visitors watching the parrots inside their massive enclosure. The bright blue macaws all danced and flew all around the fake tree limbs set up in their very large aviary. The zoo visitors all just ooed and awed at the tropical birds going about their scenes. From the expression on her face, she obviously wasn't paying much attention. Her focus was only on her own private thoughts. "Mabey the answer is right under my nose and I can't even see it," she thought to herself warily, "the answer as to how to increase Elliot's mutation and furthur develop him biologically." Claudia watched closely, a large macaw fluttering all about the aviary. "Elliot has indeed gone beyond other primitive apes thats been proven," she kept thinking to herself, around and around.

Elsewhere, the heavily muscular, giant green creature known as the incredible Hulk, was running wild on a flat grassy field in the midst of a flower show. Everybody on the field went running screaming, as the Hulk ran amok-waving his big green fists above his head, his white eyes glaring with rage, his teeth gritted, his heavy brow ridges rising slowly upwards on his forehead. There were rows upon rows of brililantly coloured flowers standing in huge white, square containers all about the grassy field. The Hulk just ran uncontrollably past all the flower container growling and shouting his loud animal noises!

The Hulk's long white pants ripped furthur along the knees, as the Hulk moved swiftly past a huge white container of roses. The green creature growled even louder.

A hundred people were running away from the huge, green skinned monstrosity screaming in complete fear. The Hulk opened his mouth wide and growled loud animal growls.

Most of the people were jumping into their cars all parked at the edge of the field.

The Hulk just stood there growling and raising his fists. The Hulk raised his head to the sky and growled. His pumped his massive green fists up and down rapidly.

Claudia just kept walking all around the zoo enclosures, lost in thought, her hands behind her back. She walked past the grizzly bear cage, and watched with interest, the dark brown shaggy carnivore pacing bored, on all fours, all about his cage. "Mabey I should try the gamma experiment on other animals," she thought to herself, "mabey i should try on bears." She chuckled. "Elliot is probably reading the Times and bitching for higher pay about now."

Claudia turned and walked slowly away from the bear cage and strolled aimlessly over to the bison area.

She stopped and watched a herd of american bison walking about a large space made to resemble an american western plains. Her mind went back to the past again...

_The heavily muscled big green man stood in the laboratory wearing the ripped, tattered clothing and growling and waving his fists around..._

Claudia stood there watching the bison, but not paying attention. It was obvious from her eyes that she was thinking of something else entirely. "What was that big green thing that burst through the zoo that time, four years ago?" she wondered nervously, "my guess would be a mutation, but of a much more savage, primitive nature than Elliot's."

As more zoogoers showed up to crowd around the bison space, Claudia turned away and continued her walk through the zoo. "I wonder what ever happened to that one assistant David," she pondered as she walked slowly across a small grassy lawn, "he was a genius. Why was he wasting his talent working as a janitor at the zoo?" The dark haired zoologist sat down on park bench on the grassy lawn. "Why didn't he accept the job offer to stay on as my assistant? Of all the assistants I've had, I must say David was the brightest. Why would he runaway from a high paying job like that?"

Claudia got up off the park bench and strolled down the gravely pathway of the zoo. People occasionally happily walked past her, chattering about the different animals to see. "Well, the only way I'll get the answer to my current scientific problem, I suppose, is to go back to the files of my mentor Dr. David Banner." Claudia kicked up some small stones, as she skipped down the gravel. "Good old Dr. Banner," she thought, bemused, smiling, "one of the biggest names in the field of science and what happens? He and his friend Dr. Marks both get themselves killed in a lab explosion." Claudia just shook her head. "Fate goes and robs us of one of the top brains in our profession." Claudia skipped towards the zoo offices just ahead of her. "Poor David Banner. First loses his wife then his own life. Nobody expects life to be fair." Claudia just sighed in frustration. "Now, I have that meeting with board. That's going to take up most of the day I imagine." She sighed again as she looked straight ahead at the building. "How I miss the good old days of plain research. Anybody can be a director."

Jack McGee and Patty Steinhauer stood in the middle of the crowd of panic stricken people. McGee was wearing tan business suit, while Patty Steinhauer wore a dark blue, short sleeved dress with her hair tied up in a bun. Both of them stood in the middle of the grassy field where the flower show had taken place. The flowers were all still untouched in their big white containers. McGee and Steinhauer were both talking loudly to a young woman in a yellow and blue coloured dress, with wavy brown hair and thick lips. "Now look, surely you can tell us more than that!" McGee demanded of the woman with a desperate expression coming over his features, "I mean the facts: the creature suddenly appeared, two minutes after your assistant supervisor got caught in the middle of the robbery at the box office." The young woman just nodded agreeably. "Yes, yes that's right," she replied, as she smiled at McGee, "talk about a disaster! We'd been organizing this flower show for like six monthes and now all this. Right on the very day of the show..." McGee raised his hand to her face as a gesture for her to stop talking for a minute. Patty Steinhauer looked sternly at the woman. "You had the man who becomes the Hulk working for you," Patty Steinhauer told the young woman, "so how about giving us some more information!" "I don't want to be difficult," McGee assured the flower show woman, "I'm only after facts. Now, the man that got caught in the armed robbery before the creature showed up, I assume you have a name for this man being he works here." The woman frowned at that remark. "Don't get cute with me McGee," she warned as she glared at the reporter, "his name is listed as D. Bertrin." "Okay," McGee said. "In fact," the woman continued, "that's him right over there." The woman turned her body and pointed to the left of her. McGee also turned left.

In the crowd of people stood a man of about late forties, early fifties, average height, wavy black hair, sunglasses and dark skinned. He wore a blue vest and white short sleeved t shirt and blue jeans. As soon as he saw McGee, Steinhauer and the woman looking at him, he turned his whole body around and ran fast across the grassy field.

McGee pushed the woman aside and took off after the dark skinned man. Steinhauer ran right behind McGee.

The 'D. Bertrin' man ran through the crowd of still scared people, towards a brown covertible parked way off at the edge of the field. McGee and Steinhauer were dashing across the grass headed in the fleeing man's direction. A purple duffel bag was in the backseat of the vehicle.

'D. Bertrin opened the door of the brown car, jumped behind the steering wheel in the driver seat and drove the car off down the freeway at the right side of the grassy field and out of sight.

As the brown convertible zipped down the freeway with grassland on both sides, 'D. Bertrin' steered the wheel with his left hand, as his right hand pulled off the black wig and tossed it into the freeway. He also ran his hand over his dark skinned face and began wiping off the black makeup off his features...

Claudia sat in the large, green walled meeting room, at the square brown walnut table surrounded by fifteen or so men and women of different ages belonging to the zoo board of directors. The people all wore business suits of different colours or fancy looking dresses. Claudia and the people at the table just sat there discussing everything subject related to the zoo amongst themselves-from hiring carpenters to build animal enclosures, to spending more of the budget doing scientific research, to raising the prices of zoo admission, to making an expensive decision of whether or not purchase three crocodiles from Australia.

One of the zoo board members-a tall, busty sixty year old, long haired filipino woman named Tess Patricia-leaned across the table in silver coloured, short sleeved dress, and with a weird grin spreading over her lovely features-asked Claudia. about the green creature that was seen rampaging through the zoo grounds that time some years ago, and even getting into the tiger enclosure. Claudia just frowned and looked down at the table. Her mind went back...

_The Hulk walked slowly across the zoo gravel pathway as darkness fell. His ripped zookeeper outfit and green skin standing out against the early darkness. _

_The Hulk walked past the hippo enclosure. Five hippos stood around a large swimming pool in the centre of a grassy area off to the left side of the Hulk, walled off by a narrow blue fence. One of the hippos grunted at the Hulk. The Hulk turned to look confused at the hippo and growled back, showing his full set of teeth._

_The huge green creature ultimately came to the large tiger area. There were a group of bengal tigers sleeping in the enclosure._

_The Hulk just grunted and walked into the tiger space. He sat down tiredly next to the tigeress who woke up and looked puzzled at him. The Hulk paid no attention and just ran his large green hand gently over the striped cat's back. He then picked up one of the tigeress's cubs sitting beside her, and put one of the cubs on his lap._

Claudia looked up from the table and smiled at Tess the filipino woman. "Yeah well that incident with the Hulk certainly gave the zoo some much needed added publicity," the dark haired zoologist reminded the board member.

It was evening now. Claudia walked into her laboratory. She sat down exhausted at the table covered with all the scientific papers, and rested her head on her palms on the table. "Now back to my problem again," she thought to herself, "how can I increase Elliot's mutation?" She just sat silently like that for a moment, deep in thought.

She then got up and walked towards the bookshelf at the back of her lab. The shelf was jam packed with one science text book right after another. Her finger ran along the titles till she came to the one printed in orange bold letters. COMPARATIVE ANATOMY: APES AND HUMANS-read the title, and below it the name of the authors-DR. DAVID BANNER AND DR. ELAINA MARKS. Claudia pulled the heavy text book out of the shelf, and carried it with her to the table. She dropped the huge text down on the table and sat down herself. She began paging mindlessly through the book. "Elliot is so far advanced now from the other apes, that the zoo staff must be starting to wonder if he was once a human who emerged from an isolation tank in the basement of a medical school somewhere's," Claudia joked out loud as she looked through the book. Full colour photos of wild chimpanzees, of Jane Goodall playing with some chimps in the jungle, the gorilla Koko, the star of Wild Kingdom,playing his pet chimp co host of the show in a red walled room-marlin wearing a black business suit and his chimp wearing a white tracksuit, and finally a black and white picture of Dr. David Banner himself, standing behind a white table in a white walled lab, facing a female orangutan on the other side of the table. Dr. Banner wore a white lab coat and he had a beard and glasses. There was a pile of blocks on the table-children blocks-with pictures of all the Disney cartoon characters on each one of the blocks. In the photo Dr. Banner has a wide grin on his face. Claudia stared puzzled at the photo of Dr. Banner for a minute. "Hmmmmmmmmmm," she thought,"it couldn't really be? Could it? Could be the same man?" Claudia paged at top speed to the back of the text book, to the dust jacket. She looked at the black and white photo of Dr. Banner. Bearded, wearing glasses, wavy brown hair, a weak smile on his face, and wearing a brown jacket and a gray turtle neck sweater. And below his photo, another black and white photo of a gorgeous young woman with long, curly blonde hair and wearing a white lab coat. Claudia fixed her attention on the photo of Dr. Banner. Dr. David Banner. "Hmmmmmmmmm. It couldn't be could it?" Claudia said to herself in a whisper. She paged through the book again. "There must be another photo of Dr. Banner somewhere's," she said quietly as she looked through the text book-_Humans more than likely evolved from swamp dwelling creatures rather than living in the jungle. All the characteristics of humans, indicate an aquatic life style of background..._Claudia read a small paragraph from one of the chapters in the book, where Dr. Banner talks about the missing link between apes and humans. Claudia paged through the heavy text book some more. She got to the chapter on mutations. _A mutation, perhaps, is most likely just the cells of the body attempting to adopt to different environment and changing themselves in the process. _"Dr. Banner always was very long winded," Claudia smiled to herself as she briefly read the lines. There was another photo of the great scientist, a colour one this time on the first page of the chapter. Dr. Banner was standing in a university classroom wearing a lab coat over a dark shirt. He wore white pants and boots. The chalkboard of the classroom was full of all kinds of advanced chemistry formulas. In that photo Dr. Banner was clean shaven though still wearing glasses. Claudia stared down at the photo. "It's been some years since I last saw David, but I'm sure that's HIM!" Claudia made the shocking truth to herself. She jabbed her finger down on the photo. "It all adds up!" She ran through the events in her mind from four years back...

_"I'm very familiar with Dr. Banner's work," David told her._

_"A step furthur with radiation?" David had asked her._

Claudia got up from her desk and went back to the bookshelf.

_"They like you," David had told her on the first day they'd met in the children's zoo, "probably because they know you like them."_

The dark haired zoologist ran her finger over all the titles in the bookshelf, yet again. She came to a title THE COMPLETE MEDICAL RESEARCHES OF DR. DAVID BANNER (forwarded by Dr. Gail Collins ). Claudia pulled the small text book off the shelf. She held the book in both her hands and turned it over. "I have to see another photo of him," she thought to herself, "then I can be sure. I have to see the dust jacket..."

Sure enough, there on the dust jacket was a full colour of Dr. David Banner bearded, wearing a light blue buttoned up shirt and a big smile on his face. Claudia studied the photo.

_..."discoveries before Dr. Banner," David had once said to her, "why didn't you publish them?"_

Claudia looked up from the book and broke into a wide smile. "DR. DAVID BANNER SURVIVED THE LAB EXPLOSION!" she thought very excited and happy to herself. "It all adds up now! And the Hulk! It's no coincidence that when David Banner is here that a green creature...a mutation! OF COURSE!" Claudia looked to be very very deep in thought now. "That story about him overdosing on gamma radiation, that story must have been true. David must have developed a mutation from his experiment. And he came to my zoo research looking for a cure! Now it all becomes clear!"

Claudia sat there at the table leafing through page after page, issue after issue of the tabloid The National Register. She held up the latest issue to her eyes. A colour photo of the Hulk running through a flower show in Tampa Florida. HULK SEEN AT TAMPA FLOWER SHOW-read the headlines above the photo. _The Hulk and the man who becomes the creature, is most likely still in the Florida area. For sure. _Claudia read the lines written by Jack McGee.

Hours later Claudia sat in her office watching the latest news footage on tv. She sat in a large, light brown, coloured room, with four windows on the wall. The office was cluttered with all kinds of furniture-sofas, chairs, a desk stacked with papers-Claudia sat on a dark red sofa watching the small tv on her desk. The tv showed the Hulk running across a large rooftop of a skyscraper in Tampa somewhere's. there were lots of smaller buildings surrounding the skyscraper. It was late night in the footage. The footage was apparently being filmed by a news helicopter. "THIS IS CHANNEL 14 NEWS, ELLEN DONROGETS REPORTING LIVE FROM TAMPA FLORIDA!" shouted a woman's voice with much enthusiasm, "THE HULK IS TRAPPED ON THE ROOFTOP OF THAT OFFICE BUILDING...I DON'T KNOW HOW FAR HE CAN GO! THE TAMPA AUTHORITIES ARE HIRING SOME FIGHTER PILOTS TO TAKE SHOTS AT HIM...!" The woman's voice broke into a loud laugh, "THAT'S A LITTLE JOKE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The Hulk could be seen wearing ripped green shorts, and looking up at the camera filming him, raising his fists at the camera and growling to high heaven. He stopped running across the rooftop of the skyscarper for a minute and just stood there howling and growling as loud and as frightening as he could. "THAT'S A THIRTY STORY SKY RISE, HULK IS RIGHT NOW TRAPPED UPON!" shouted the voice of the lady news reporter. The Hulk screamed his lungs out in fury at the camera filming him. His heavy brow ridges covered in sweat. The Hulk waved his fists in every direction. His mouth wide open. The wind blowing over his wavy green hair.

The heavily muscled, green monstrosity, then ran to the very edge of the skyscraper, leaped off the roof while waving his arms, growling and landed swiftly and smoothly on his feet on the rooftop of one of the adjacent smaller buildings, on the left side of the skyscraper. "WILL YOU LOOK AT THAT!" the lady reporter's voice screamed with excitement.

After he'd landed on the rooftop, the Hulk then bent down and smashed his fists down several times over and over and over and over on the rooftop, over and over and over and over again while shouting in loud, echoing animal growls. The entire rooftop caved in and the heavily muscular green man fell down along with the pieces of the rooftop, into the building. the sounds of women screaming could be heard from inside.

Claudia just sat there watching the tv spellbound. "Poor David," she thought to herself as she studied the news footage, "he's trapped as a mutant beast. But what causes the change I wonder?"

On the news footage, the door of the ground floor of the building could be seen flying off and upwards, and the Hulk could then be seen on the helicopter news footage, charging out of the now open entrance on the ground floor of the building (admidst the sounds of people screaming from inside the building). The Hulk then ran off into the night and was soon lost out of sight, to the filming news crew.

Claudia got up and switched off the tv set. She stood there utterly silent in her office, lost in her own thoughts.

EPILOGUE-

Claudia and Elliot the gorilla sat together on the floor of her laboratory, speaking to each other in sign language. Claudia wore a lab coat over her zoo uniform. She was laughing now. "Elliot is making better than ever progress with our sign language exercises," Claudia thought to herself happily, "I suddenly realized what the answer is to increase Elliot's progress. The answer doesn't have to be to furthur the his mutation, although that's still one possible solution, but to develop more of his learning skills through day by day teaching. Communication skills. That's what Elliot really needs right now." The gorilla gruffed and grunted loudly.

Elsewhere, somewhere's in Tampa Florida, Dr. David Banner walked briskly down a crowded street-he wore a short sleeved blue and white checkered, sports shirt, blue jeans, boots, his purple duffel bag slung over his right shoulder. He was moving towards a huge orange sign at the end of the street which read-TAMP FLORIDA-CITY LIMITS.


End file.
